


something that i know i'm waiting for

by gealbhan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Beaujester Week, D&D Mechanics, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Non-Graphic Violence, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-05-29 13:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: Jester turns to face the party, a healing spell already on her tongue. She looks around and notices one face conspicuously absent, and the spell dies on her lips. Her pearlescent smile melts into a concerned frown. “Where’s Beau?”A hush falls over the group.





	something that i know i'm waiting for

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 4 of beaujester week: resurrection. this has been written for a month and i almost went out of my mind trying not to post it ahead of time. warnings: temporary character death, associated grief, and off-screen violence
> 
> title is from "atlanta" by go! child (considered a couple other lyrics from the same song, but they seemed... a tad too on the nose). enjoy~

Jester takes a moment to catch her breath after the battle comes to a resounding halt, enemies slewn and the scent of victorious blood in the air almost too thick to handle. A cut beneath her eye stings and her arms are weighed down with her spiritual lollipop—which she dissipates in a shower of sparkles—but she’s alive, at least, and if the sounds of panting from behind her are anything to go by, so are the others. Hurt and tired, maybe, but alive.

(Making it out of a single altercation with a group of bandits alive seems like a low bar, but hey, Xhorhas is scary, and they’ve already had a few too many close calls.)

Jester turns to face the party, a healing spell already on her tongue. She looks around and notices one face conspicuously absent, and the spell dies on her lips. Her pearlescent smile melts into a concerned frown. “Where’s Beau?”

A hush falls over the group. Caduceus looks the calmest, but there’s a subtle restlessness to him; a twitch of the hand resting on his staff, a small bloom of moss beneath. Yasha has her hands clapped over her mouth and is bent over, quivering like a tree branch in a storm. Her wings are extended, sinewy black sharp against the sky, which is far too bright for such a sinister mood. Caleb is kneeling, pale and stricken face tinted with a sickly green and gaze somewhere far off. Nott is nowhere in sight—hidden behind one of the others, Jester guesses, and if she listens closely she can hear ragged gasping. Fjord has his back turned to Jester, entire body slumped and shuddering as he buries his head in his hands.

Something terrible has happened, Jester knows. Something went wrong during the fight—not all of them had made it out. And she’s too late.

Caduceus speaks, but Jester doesn’t hear him, only sees his mouth moving and redirects her frantic gaze to the ground around which everyone is gathered. Her heart drops into her stomach.

“No,” she whispers. “No no no no no—”

And she lurches forward, and she breaks into a run even though it’s not that far, and she cries, _“Beau!”_

The bloodied shape doesn’t move as Jester crouches above her, pressing her hands against her face. Beau is usually boiling in comparison to Jester’s cool skin, but now she’s even colder than Jester. Her chest is still and her eyes are closed. Jester scrambles around looking for a pulse, laying two fingers on Beau’s wrist and then the other wrist and then her neck when both fail. Tears spring to her eyes as she gasps for breath while Beau does not.

“Jester,” comes the low rumble of Caduceus behind her. Jester’s shoulders tighten. “She’s gone.”

“ _No,”_ says Jester again, sounding like a petulant child who’s been robbed of a precious toy, but this _can’t be happening_. Beau _can’t_ be dead. She can’t, because Jester—Jester—

Jester stops, staring at the body before her. Blood is leaking from the corner of Beau’s mouth. Strands of hair have come undone all over her face, which is still streaked with drying sweat. Jester’s eyes dart to Beau’s stomach for a second, landing on the still-bleeding wound and the dried blood coating the rest of her torso, but her own stomach churns and she snaps her gaze back up to Beau’s face. Her fingers tighten on those cold cheeks.

Jester sucks in a breath and almost chokes on it. _I love her so much,_ she thinks.

And, she realizes in the same instant, it’s not the kind of love she’d originally thought it to be. Not a stronger or more important kind; just a different kind. A different kind that changes her thoughts from a simple _I can’t lose her, she’s the best friend I’ve ever had_ to _I can’t lose her, I love her so so fucking much and I didn’t even get to tell her, I didn’t even get to_ know.

 _Only you, Jester,_ says a voice at the back of her mind, one that sounds like her mama’s, _would realize you’d fallen in love with someone the minute after she died._

Jester sobs, broken and uncontrollable, and rocks back on her heels, dabbing at her eyes. Her efforts to stop the tears are futile—they don’t care, they keep rolling down her cheeks, and her eyes are already stinging and her throat is sore and her heart feels like it’s going to explode in her chest.

All of a sudden, she understands Yasha’s rage like never before. When Molly had fallen what seems like a lifetime ago now (and Jester’s chest tightens at the memory, aged but still raw), there had only been tearful sorrow and fleeting anger over how unfair it was, not just his death but how Jester hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. Now, it’s pure emotion all around. All-consuming fury at the world. At the ones who had snuffed the light from Beau (Beau, tough Beau, unrelenting Beau who would go down eight times and get up nine any other time) even though they’re likely already dead. At herself for not paying enough attention; Caduceus had taken some weight off her shoulders, but she’s still one of the clerics. She should have been watching, she should have healed them or insisted they rest before moving on, she should have—

She hiccups. The sound and sensation startle her, and embarrassment replaces her anger. Jester bites her lip to hold back another desperate sob. Beau wouldn’t like seeing her like this—she would reach up to wipe Jester’s tears and smile in that way that made most people want to punch it off her (but never Jester, who, she’s realizing, would rather have kissed it away).

At the thought of the ghost of a touch, Jester looks hopefully down. Beneath her, Beau remains still and—and d—

Jester can’t even think it. She looks away, squeezes her eyes shut as more tears come flowing forth and snot dribbles from her nose. She knows everyone is looking at her—she can even hear a few quiet sniffles among the rest of the party. She doesn’t care. _Can’t_ care. Can’t give a rat’s ass about anything except Beau in front of her, though Jester is as helpless to do anything as she had been when Molly—

Something occurs to Jester. It brings her tears to a halt, freezing one on its way to her jaw. She _isn’t_ helpless anymore; she hadn’t ever been totally so, but when it comes to this specific situation, she isn’t limited by time restraints any longer. Jester sits back, wipes her face for good this time, and tilts her chin up.

“I—I can fix this,” she says. “It’ll take about an hour, but I can save her. I—I can—I can—” Jester looks at Beau once more, that beautiful face so tranquil despite the dirt and blood and silent pain she must have been in during her last moments. Or maybe not so silent—maybe her agony had loud, but Jester had been too busy to notice her best friend’s dying scream. She swallows, steeling herself. “I can revive her. I have a diamond in my Haversack right now.”

“Jester,” Caleb says hoarsely. “Are you sure? I am just as—as—” He makes a weak sound, incoherent but still understandable, striking a chord somewhere deep within Jester. “But there are many things that could go wrong. Resurrection rituals are—they are complicated spells, and no offense to you, but—”

“I can’t lose her!” shouts Jester, her voice broken and so far removed from any semblance of composure that she recoils with shock. She covers her mouth and bites her cheek as fresh tears fall. Lower, she adds, “I can’t lose her. I—I can’t, you guys. I know about the natural order of things and all—” she shoots Caduceus a reproachful look “—but this is just—this isn’t right. I—I… I _have_ to bring her back.”

A hand, small and sharp-clawed—Nott’s—presses into her shoulder. “Then bring her back.”

Jester swallows again. Shame gnawing at her insides, she looks around the group. Caleb is staring at the ground—he nods, slow, and when he lifts his gaze to meet Jester’s for a split second, the grief and determination burning as brightly as any flame he could produce are unmistakable. Fjord’s own nods are rushed, tear tracks visible on his mask of a face as he lowers his hands. Yasha’s wings disappear, and she clutches the hilt of her sword with white knuckles. Caduceus shuffles his feet. Another small growth of moss begins beneath his palm, but he smiles, and that’s—

That’s all the approval Jester needs. She gathers all the strength within herself, all the strength her family has lent her, and hovers over Beau.

“Traveler…” Her voice cracks. She bends her head and reaches into her Haversack for a diamond. With shaking fingers, she sets it on Beau’s chest, right where her unbeating heart lies beneath the skin. “Traveler, please help me bring her back. I need you right now.”

His presence makes itself known, silent but _warm_ and _home_ and more powerful than ever before. An invisible pair of hands close over Jester’s. She relaxes into the embrace, letting the Traveler’s magic pour into her. It’s enough to make her lightheaded.

Jester takes a deep breath, getting used to the feeling, and begins to recite the spell. She hadn’t wanted to believe she would ever have to cast it, but she had still _known better_ (from experience if nothing else) and familiarized herself with it to the point of being able to cast it in her sleep. Her voice is shaky but clear, and with the Traveler’s steady grip to guide her, she settles into the ritual.

It takes a long time. After a while, it seems as though Jester has been casting for days rather than under an hour. Her words and surroundings are blurry, only the distant presences of the Mighty Nein and the closer one of the Traveler there to ground her. She feels like she should be exhausted from all the rambling of arcane words and hand motions and the mental strain alone, but energy and magic pump through her blood, filling her with the power to see this through to the end.

The spell comes to a head, and Jester holds her breath while it takes its final effects. For a moment, she can see the magic hanging in the air. The Traveler’s ghostly form has flickered in and out of visibility for the duration of the spell, but she can also spot ribbons of sparkles swirling around Beau, bathing her in glowing verdant light and lifting her the slightest bit off the dirt.

Jester presses her lips to Beau’s forehead. The kiss lingers, Jester’s lips tingling with warmth when she pulls away. A single tear falls onto Beau’s cheek. “Please, please, _please_ come back to me,” Jester chokes out.

And then—the spell ends. And it all fades, leaving Jester gasping for air as the power surge and Traveler’s guidance leave her all at once. Black spots dance in her vision as she doubles over, clutching her stomach, but she has to stay awake, has to see the effects of the spell, because the clearing is dead still and beneath her—

Beneath her, Beau doesn’t breathe or move, not even a twitch. Jester stares, uncomprehending and dizzy. The tension is tangible. Jester’s eyes pinch shut with silent, all-consuming rage as she clenches her fists.

They had failed. Even with the Traveler’s help, even with the diamond, even with all of the intermingled heartbreak and love that threatens to burst out of Jester’s chest even now, the spell still hadn’t worked, Jester isn’t strong enough, Beau is still—

An inhale sounds. It isn’t from Jester, and it’s too close to be one of the others. Her eyes snap open, and a gasp of her own slips out.

Beau is breathing. Slow, measured breaths, not noticeable at first glance, but she’s _breathing_ , and when Jester scrambles up and pats the side of her neck, the characteristic warmth is back, as is a faint pulse, which gains speed under Jester’s thumb. But aside from the clinical signs of life, Beau still isn’t moving. Jester’s mind runs wild with the possibilities of all that could have gone wrong for a second before, under her watch, Beau’s eyes slide open.

Startled bright blue meets wide, glassy purple. A giddy laugh bubbles out of Jester. Behind her, sounds of celebration rise among the Nein, but they’re background noise to Jester. She surges forward—with trembling hands, she cups Beau’s face between her palms, thrilled by the rush of warm blood beneath her cold hands, and leans down to press her forehead to Beau’s as Beau blinks up at her.

“You came back to me,” Jester says, the adoration in her voice audible from miles away.

It takes a second, but Beau replies, just as tender even with a note of confusion to it, “Of course I did.”

Jester laughs again. She can’t help it—all of the anger and sadness that had filled her mere seconds ago have been replaced with pure joy, a wholehearted happiness that had bloomed the second she spotted Beau’s chest heave again. She leans back, not wanting to overwhelm Beau, and asks, “How do you feel?”

Beau tries to sit up. She immediately falls back down with a wince and loud _crunch_ coming from about half of her bones. If Jester wasn’t so worn out from casting Resurrection, she’d heal her, but alas and alack. “Like I died,” says Beau.

“That may not be that far off from reality,” says Yasha, and Jester—along with, she suspects, most of the others, including Beau—cringes. She turns in time to catch Yasha’s sheepish smile as she takes a step closer. Yasha clears her throat. “It’s good to have you back, Beau.”

“Didn’t go anywhere,” Beau croaks. Her eyes flit back to Jester, who almost melts under the intensity of her gaze.

Yasha must spot it, too, because her smile takes on a secretive edge. She turns to the rest of the group and says, quiet but firm, “We’ll give them a little privacy, all right?”

With various grumbles and sighs, the rest of the Nein shuffles away. They’re staying within earshot to eavesdrop, Jester assumes, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. Their little family is broken and admittedly pretty fucked up and Jester wouldn’t trade it—even Nott, who she can hear shifting in the thin bushes in the distance—for the world.

Jester looks down. She tightens her grip on Beau’s face, cradling it in her hands as she tries her hardest not to cry again because her eyes are already puffy and stinging and she must look like a mess and—

“Did I really fucking _die_?” says Beau, nose wrinkled.

It startles a weak laugh out of Jester. “I—I don’t really want to think about it, let alone talk about it,” she manages. “You were—you were so—” Unable to do anything to stop herself now, Jester breaks into a fit of sniffles and lets her tears flow, taking shuddering breaths interspersed with hiccups.

A thumb swipes across her cheek, wiping away a few tears. Beau makes gentle—if somewhat bewildered—shushing noises. “I’m not anymore.” Beau tilts her head up to graze her lips against Jester’s temple before looking down again, their noses brushing as she does. “I’m here, Jes. I’m right here.”

Jester’s able to hold herself back for five more seconds before she bursts into unbridled sobs again. She burrows her head in Beau’s chest. She’s definitely staining the front of Beau’s top with tears and snot, but given it’s already ruined with blood and dirt and grime, she figures it’s collateral at this point. Ear against Beau’s heart, she listens to the steady beat to remind herself. The feeling of it strumming beneath her head only makes her cry harder.

A pair of solid arms wrap around her, subtly shaking. Jester arches into the embrace, stutters out, “You were gone. You were _dead_ , Beau, and I—I—”

“Yeah, but you _brought me back_ ,” Beau says against the top of Jester’s head, voice as rough and teary as Jester knows her own to be. Beau’s grip tightens, pulling Jester taut against her. “You’re pretty damn incredible, you know that?”

“I’m—” Jester chokes out a wet laugh. “ _I’m_ the incredible one? I had to bring you back from the dead, Beau, and you’re just acting like—like everything’s—” She sniffs and, no matter how hard it is, extracts herself from Beau’s firm arms so she can really look at her.

Beau blinks. A few tears come trickling down, the sight of which has Jester making a small, broken noise. Throat bobbing, Beau looks up, eyes resting somewhere right above Jester’s eyes. Her hands settle on Jester’s hips. The weight is an immediate comfort, as are the slow circular patterns Beau soothes into her sides with her thumbs.

“I felt it,” says Beau, almost a whisper. “When you brought me back. I—I didn’t see anything when I—” her mouth twists into a grim line “—died, I guess, but I felt warm for a few seconds before I woke up. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“That—that was probably the Traveler,” says Jester, attempting—again to no avail—to clean her face up. She can breathe again, but her eyes still burn every time another tear slips free, and she doesn’t like how disgusting her face feels. Jester drags her sleeve across her nose and inhales with a gross sound like a wet honk. “His magic is a lot more powerful than mine—mine basically is his, you know.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” One of Beau’s hands lifts to Jester’s chin, tipping it down so their foreheads knock together again. “Even if you need his help, you’re really fucking strong, Jester. You were able to resurrect me, weren’t you? That’s—that’s not something you’ve ever done before.”

Jester snorts and ignores the snot bubble that pops in her nose. “Technically, I did bring Caduceus back that one time. But with Revivify, not Resurrection. This was—” She shuts her eyes for a moment. “This was a lot more powerful, because you had already been… out longer than a minute, but—but it has side effects, too.”

Biting her lip, Jester leans back. She takes Beau’s wrist, peels it gently away, and moves to rest their hands on Beau’s stomach before remembering all the blood there and thinking better of it, setting them on Beau’s chest instead. Jester is shaking too much to do more, so Beau is the one to intertwine their fingers. She doesn’t say anything, only raises her eyebrows with a clear invitation— _go on_ —and squeezes Jester’s hip with her free hand.

“Right,” says Jester, more of a squeak than an actual word. She forces herself to calm down. Takes deep breaths, counts them out. Thinks about cute tiny unicorns instead of the period of time when Beau had been dead.

When she speaks again, her voice is shaking and barely above a whisper, but she isn’t crying, the only indicators she had been to begin with the dried tears and red-rimmed eyes and smeared makeup and, okay, everything about her appearance, really. But Beau is the only witness to this state, and judging by the look in her eyes, Jester knows she doesn’t care. “You’ll be weaker for a few days, so we’ll have to watch your back—and everyone else’s—to make sure this doesn’t happen again, ‘cause I—I don’t have any more diamonds.” Not to mention she can’t handle the stress again any time soon. “You should be pretty weak right now, actually, but I—” she lowers her voice to a full whisper “—don’t think I can really cast any spells right now. I mean, I _could_ , but—this took a lot out of me, Beau. Apparently bringing dead people back to life is really tough.”

Beau’s laugh sounds more like a wheeze, but it’s still something. Her grip on Jester’s hand tightens. Jester squeezes back.

“You really are fucking amazing,” Beau tells her.

Jester’s mouth opens in a half-assed protest, but it falters when Beau’s other hand comes up to hold her cheek. Beau’s thumb wipes the remaining traces of tears—and a couple of fallen eyelashes, though all of the wishes Jester has had in the past hour have been thoroughly granted—from beneath her eyes. She smiles up at Jester, thin but bright, and—

Jester still hurts. She’s still tired. Contrary to what most people insist about crying, she doesn’t feel much better; she’s keener to her exhaustion and some body aches from the battle she’d ignored earlier in favor of getting to work on Beau. But her face also hurts, especially her eyes and nose, and she feels a little like crying again now that she’s opened the floodgates. And crying doesn’t erase what happened, what Jester had been crying about in the first place. She’ll feel better soon, she knows, but for now she’s just drained.

She looks at Beau. Beau looks at her.

For a brief moment, it feels like there’s still a spell hanging in the air, ribbons of magic wrapping around them both to tug them back together and draw short, semi-hysterical laughs from them. Jester closes her eyes and slumps onto Beau. For a second, she’s tempted to fall asleep here, nestled against the live warmth that is Beau, but there’s something left to say.

“I love you,” she says—gasps, really.

Then she’s almost suffocating again, this time not with pain but the love that fills her in that instant. It isn’t a million butterflies bursting in her stomach or her foot popping as they kiss in the pouring down rain; it’s better than that. It’s looking at Beau and being hit with a warmth like the sunlight after a storm. It’s the feeling of safety and home that comes from her and Beau’s fingers slotted together. It’s the way she hasn’t realized she’s _in_ love with Beau until now because it’s been such a natural fall, as steady as the leaves from the trees as autumn turns to winter.

“I was—I was so scared, Beau,” Jester rambles, overcome for a moment. “I couldn’t lose you, not without telling you how much I love you even though I just realized when you—when you were gone, and I don’t even care if you don’t love me back like that, I’m just _so fucking happy_ you’re still here, you’re still—”

“Jes,” says Beau, quiet, and Jester’s mouth slams shut. Beau’s hand leaves hers, but a second later, another palm cups her other cheek, drawing Jester’s face closer and closer to Beau’s until Beau’s breath is fanning across Jester’s nose. “I love you too.”

“Oh,” murmurs Jester, beaming before she even realizes. And she’s heard it before, but there’s so much feeling to it now that there’s no ambiguity, no misinterpretations to be had. “Really?”

Beau’s eyes slide shut. “Really.”

There will be plenty to discuss later: the anguish Jester had endured upon seeing Beau lifeless and stiff; the feelings of the rest of the party; hell, Beau’s own feelings about being dead for a little over an hour; how their relationship will change and how it’ll stay the same and how it’ll affect the group. Jester knows that. But right now, looking at Beau and treasuring that spark of life in her eyes, all Jester wants to do is exist here, in this moment, with Beau. And so she pushes all other thoughts on her mind and closes the distance between them.

And while a kiss may not have roused Beau from death like in a fairy tale, it’s still pretty damn magical.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! if you have time to spare, comments and/or kudos are very much appreciated <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://infernallegaycy.tumblr.com) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/birdmarrow)


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